Friday, October 21, 2011

I am so bad at running

Somehow, I think I might have volunteered to run a 5k with my sister-in-law on Thanksgiving. I'm not quite sure how this happened.

Actually I am sure of the events leading to this but I am unsure of the "why."

Actually the "why" might be that I am dumb.

So, the weather has been really great these past few days when I've gotten home from work. As I mentioned before, where I live in Florida, the warmest part of the day is not around noon; it is around 5 pm. Which is awful when I get home and it's in the 90's and the puppies want to be walked RIGHT NOW. But this week, despite chilly mornings and afternoon, by evening time, the weather is perfect for a pair of yoga pants and a t shirt.

My 5k problem starts with this weather. Wearing my yoga pants and t shirt, and with the perfect breeze at my back, I felt nearly compelled to start jogging along with the puppies. So I did. Tentatively, because I suck at running. But the puppies didn't judge me, they just ran alongside me and then stopped every so often to pee, which gave me a chance to catch my breath as I pretended to just be casually stopping to let my dogs do their business but in reality I was gasping for air.

The puppies really responded to this jogging thing, and by the time we got home from our walk/jog, they were even less spastic than they normally are after a walk. I made the second mistake of feeling somewhat proud of myself. I had no reason to run; it wasn't like anyone was chasing me - but I had done it any way, in spite of myself.

And so then I did it the next day. And the next. And I still wasn't getting any better at it, but the dogs were happy and it seems like everyone I know is always posting about their jogging 5 miles every day or whatever on their Facebooks and so I really need to try to keep up.

On Wednesday, I got back to the house with the puppies just as my sister in law was leaving to go on her jog, a respectable 2 mile run, unlike my ... uh, just over a mile jaunt. When she got back and started doing her cool down stretches in the living room while I worked on Smiley's costume, she said, "I should do a Turkey Trot. You know, one of those runs they do on Thanksgiving."

Amped up on several days of almost running over a mile, I nodded enthusiastically. "You totally should. And I will too. Let's do it together!" The words came out of my mouth without the slightest hesitation.

"That's awesome, Dani!" she said.

I don't know if I is going to happen for real. I didn't physically sign up for anything. And it's going to be colder. And other excuses. But just in case, I'm going to keep jogging with the puppies for a few more days here.